


Constants

by neaf



Category: Doug Anthony All Stars RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:46:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neaf/pseuds/neaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you live in circles and can't find the ground, you need something to hold on to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Constants

Richard's hands were soft.

His fingertips, however, were rough and firm. Every digit felt as though it carried a tiny puddle-stone beneath the skin. It was the physical price of playing for so many years, and playing a twelve string at that, but one that Richard wore with pride. Most handshakes he'd been offered in the music industry had been accompanied with a side comment of, 'how long have you been playing?' before he even mentioned he owned a guitar.

But he'd worked so hard to play well enough on stage, or even on the street. For Paul's approval, his praise, or even his nonchalance was welcomed - but if a mistake was made at any crucial moment, if his fingers slipped, he missed a chord, he lost the rhythm... Paul's disapproval would be the only thing that mattered. Their on-stage personas rarely played true to life, but there was the odd frightening occasion when Richard couldn't tell which Paul was which.

Tim was the constant that both men worked from with indefinite accuracy. When Paul was drunk, and punches were thrown at some miscellaneous bar in some nameless town, it was always Tim that picked up what was left of him and took him home. If Richard was drug-fucked, panicked and shaking, sweating rivers in some dirt encrusted foreign hotel bathroom, not sure whether or not to cry or just keep breathing - it was Tim that ran the water, found the towel, and brought normalcy creeping back.

And it was in those odd hours between dawn and mid-morning that Richard and Tim found their time. With the remnants of Paul spreadeagled on the hotel floor somewhere near the doorframe in their 330Baht one-bed hotel 'room', the only thing inside that could actually be described as a bed was eagerly occupied.

When the morning heat set in covers were no longer an issue, and with skin on display Tim would revel in the warmth and the probing hands of his companion. Richard would rake rough fingertips down exposed chest, riding the bumps of Tim's ribs and pressing into the stomach below as his mouth found a lower mark and moved in time with the hips below.

Each moan that escaped would punctuate the silence, every one short, deep, and almost breathless as Richard's lips and fingertips would work across his aching body. Hands would find his chest again as Richard pulled himself slowly up Tim's body until their lips met and his hands probed downwards once again. Every stroke and ever inch of pressure given deliberately, Richard would not let Tim's lips escape his until the last moment, as with one last, strong stroke Tim would break away and cry out as in one long, drawn out spasm he came against Richard's thigh. 

And even after the act, however many they could handle, they would lie naked and uncovered in the heat, sinking in each other's sweat and rapidly losing their senses to their mutual exhaustion.

Paul would wake, eventually, but they will be up by then and scooping piles of whatever they could find that resembled coffee into whatever they could find that resembled cups. And the day would begin again, not quite yesterday, but close enough that anybody else probably couldn't tell the difference. Little of it mattered, as the next night would be as much of a replica as the day had been. 

Tim remembered when they'd begun to live in circles, how they'd all been so excited about being somewhere new every day. But as every new town or country was explored, each place began to blend together, and it wasn't the changes that mattered but everything that had stayed the same. The two constants in his life that mattered.

Paul's bottle and Richard's hands.


End file.
